Latest news on the migrant crisis.
Croatia has quietly introduced a quota for migrants and will accept only 580 of them a day, just like Slovenia. The information was first confirmed by Vesna Drole from the Slovenian police and only later by the Croatian Interior Ministry as well. “That was agreed by police directors from Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. In a joint statement, the countries agreed they would limit the daily transit between countries of the Western Balkans so that each country can effectively check and admit each migrant in accordance with the Schengen rules”, explained the Slovenian Ministry of Interior, reports Večernji List on February 27, 2016.
“Following the introduction of quotas by Austria and after that country started returning migrants, we have agreed about the approximate quota of 580 migrants a day. The decision was adopted unanimously and signed”, explained Drole. The information on quotas was later confirmed by Croatian authorities as well. The decision was made under pressure from Austria, which has recently restricted the entry to a daily maximum of 3200 migrants in transit and 80 asylum applicants.
That something was happening was evident from the statement given by Croatian Interior Minister Vlaho Orepić in Brussels on Thursday. He said that “we are now working on the basis of profiling operations which are being conducted at the Macedonian-Greek border. However, there are some new restrictions which have taken place and we are currently defining them in terms of a common solution”.
Croatia immediately informed Serbian police about the quota, which was confirmed by Serbian Interior Minister Nebojša Stefanović, who says that they were told that Croatia will not accept more than 500 people a day. “We have received notification about the new regime by Croatian and Slovenian police”, said Stefanović to the media in Belgrade, adding that they have requested the notification in writing, so that it would be clear that “Serbia was not imagining things”.
Croatian Ministry of Interior on Thursday gave no answer to the question of how many asylum applications have been filed in Croatia since the beginning of this year. The statistics show that last year there were 152 such requests, but it can be assumed that this year the number of asylum applications in Croatia has been increased, since all those migrants who have been returned by Slovenia have the right to seek asylum in Croatia.
